Luber Finer oil filters

[wavinwayne]

My father in law owns a small trucking company. He & his cousin (who also owns his trucking company) both park their trucks at my in-laws house. The other day when I was there, I took a look at the engine on one of their Kenworth trucks. It had a Luber-Finer oil filter on it. Are these good diesel filters? Are they used on anything besides big rigs?

 

[Dan4510]

Cant say about the larger filters but bought one equivalent of fl1a and it was junk. Worse than a fram when i cut it apart.

Dan

 

[wavinwayne]

I may see if my FIL or his cousin will let me have their old filter, so I can cut it open.

 

[Gary Allan]

They're made by Champ ..just like M1 ..or Warner

 

[wavinwayne]

lubeowner,

In the rare case that my FIL or his cousin ask for my opinion as to what would be a better quality filter for their rigs, what should I recommend? I believe my FIL's truck is a Peterbilt & his cousin's is a Kenworth. I don't know what size the engines are.

 

[lubeowner]

We used to use Luber-Finer filters at the shop for the heavy duty diesels we service. After cutting several open I found that the media had the wet-cardboard feel like a Fram and would tear very easily. I did find several the came off of powerstrokes and Cummins that did have media ruptures, or had media pleats that had torn loose at the endcap.

 

[reyjay1]

I'v eseen these filters at trck stops and have often wondered if they were any good in there generic white cans. That is the only palces that I have seen them carried and have never seen them talked about. I bet those trcuk stops that do oil changes use them since they sound like the equivalent of Frams.

 

[reyjay1]

wavinwayne, I bet they could use Fleetguard filters, supposed to be pretty good. I bet Wix makes filters in thier size too.

 

[lubeowner]

wavinwayne,

There are some excellent filters available for those type of applications. The Wix heavy duty line is real good, we still use the Fleetguard filters for Cummins applications here at the shop, (NAPA Gold for all other heavy duty apps.),Donaldson is also a good one but may be harder to find. Any NAPA would carry all the Wix filters they need for fuel, oil, coolant, air.

In my very first post I think I had a pic of a Luber-Finer that the endcap had completely separated.

 

[Filter guy]

Well...

Luber-finer filters have a national account program with Freighliner and Petro Truck stops.

They build filters for Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar to name but two truck engine OEM's they do business with. They also build John Deere, Mecury Marine, Kubota, and a few other non-car engine filters amounst others.

Yes, they are made by Champ.

And as such they are cheap junk to some opinionated people from these forums.

It was the Luber-finer heavy duty brand which got Donaldson into the truck engine filter business. Luber-finer made 95% of Donaldsons oil, fuel, and coolant filters. Donaldson has always made their own air filters and is the leader in OEM engine business for trucks.

So if another filter manufacturer can test Luber-finer and find them sufficient for Luber-finer to private label Donaldson ( which they do to this day), of course they're cheap junk. < Donaldson since then has added capacity to build some of the more popular truck engine filters. Some of that capacity is from Mexico >

At one point in time Luber-finer made the most popular filter for Fleetguard, who is owned by Cummins engine. Fleetguard had tooling production problems and asked Luber-finer to get them out of a jam until they could sort out their own problems. So Luber-finer built truckload after truckload of the top Fleetguard part number for Cummins engines. Ask yourself why Fleetguard/Cummins would go to Luber-finer to build their filter for them. ( It was because there wasn't much different between the two performance wise, and still isn't)

Luberfiner also work with Mobil Oil on their Delvac program where Mobil will warranty truck engines for 70,000 miles between oil changes if they use Delvac 1 oil, use oil anaylsis, and get a minimum fuel mileage #. Mobil is running some tests, and may have by now upped it, to 100,000 miles. Luber-finer builds the Delvac filter for Mobil ( which is also offered in the Luberfiner line as their XL filter-- Xtra Life)

OCI's for the truck engines vary from 12,500 to 15,000 miles.

Just the facts...

 

[wavinwayne]

Thanks for the info. guys. I'll let you all know what I discover, if & when I get one of their used filters.

 

[wavinwayne]

FilterGuy,
That's very interesting info. Thanks for posting it.

 

[obbop]

Luber-Finer on my 290 Cummins LARGE car was more than just a filter cannister. It was a round metal contraption about the size of a large coffee can. Plumbed into the oil supply a revolving innner drum allowed the entering oil to spray outwards against a thin paper element that butted up against the outter wall of the cannister.

Rotational forces caused the oil to trickle down, leaving behind particles embedded in the filtering element. It was a bypass sytem that did not affect oil flow through the engine. Exposure to the air via supply and return lines and the metal cannister aided oil cooling.

When changed, the paper element had visible contaminants embedded. The system assisted the regular cannister-style oil filter.

 

[Filter guy]

Luber-finer by-pass filters started in the 1930's.

The very same housing, with a very different filter element, is used in nuclear subs to filter the hydraulic fluid so that any contaminant is removed. Because what is in the fluid if it stays there very long "may" become radio-actively charged. It keeps the subs crew from being exposed.

The units are also used in both the US Air force and Naval air force as well. In those two situations there is a "filter cart" of two housings that is taken to the planes and the "Luberfiners" are used to filter the missle control guidance fluid. These take special elements as well. ( They used to filter Poly-alpha-olefin, or PAO for short, as the fluid. I know what fluid is used now as I worked with the government and engineering to come up with the correct filtration. But as we're on the worldwide web..i'm not going to post it.)

So when you watched those missles guided to their targets on television during the Gulf War and Desert Storm..Luber-finer had a little assist.

Luber-finer also got an award from TACOM..Tank Command for their work with them back in Desert Storm for Air filters for Tanks.

 

[Crashbox]

quote:

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Originally posted by Filter guy:
Luber-finer by-pass filters started in the 1930's.

The very same housing, with a very different filter element, is used in nuclear subs to filter the hydraulic fluid so that any contaminant is removed. Because what is in the fluid if it stays there very long "may" become radio-actively charged. It keeps the subs crew from being exposed.
-snip-

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I personally think it would be neat to have some radioMoly or radioZDDP in my oil- should aid in cold starting

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself!

 

[Filter guy]

Hey just don't use a Luberfiner to filter it when you chip your vehicle with Scotty's dilitheum crystals..